Sunday 13 November 2022, 2pm
Darragh Morgan / violin
Mary Dullea / piano, harpsichord
PROGRAMME
Edward Henderson Singing
Rufus Isabel Elliot Tillage [without violence]
Georgia Denham sted fast slow
Linda Catlin Smith Rose with Thorns
Gerald Barry Midday
Gerald Barry - "95 *world premiere
Michael Finnissy Carolan and his friends
Robin Haigh Nasubi
Mark R Taylor An Epithalamium
Programme notes from Darragh Morgan:
'Romance in C for Optional Lovers' (1982) by inter-disciplinary Berlin based composer/artist Chris Newman contains fake 19th century materials, but is in no way quotation, an entirely new mock 19th century piece written towards the end of the 20th century. "It interested me to write music I felt close to, regardless of style. The degree of distancing from the "original" is very little, the degree of assemblage & the fact that its "my" music & not historical pushes the past just a little away." - Chris Newman
Shrouded within the nexus of experimental past from Satie to Feldman and Radalescu to Cardew there is an endless quality to composer Mark R Taylor's scintillating An Epithalamium written as a wedding present to Morgan and Dullea
Rufus Isabel Elliot is a composer and musician originally from Tower Hamlets, living now in Skye. Rufus composed the solo violin work Tillage [without violence] for Darragh Morgan in 2020. 'Stillness spread out from him, like rings from a stone dropped in water. His silence became not absence of sound, but a thing in itself, like the silence of the desert.' from Ursula Le Guin, The Tombs of Atuan
https://www.ambf.co.uk/tillage
Maverick Irishman Gerald Barry wrote Midday for Morgan and Dullea in 2014. They have been long time advocates of his music and their new Barry release on Mode Records including Midday was described recently as 'naggingly memorable' by The Guardian as its Album of the Week.
Three works feature harpsichord with violin in this programme:
Described by Kate Molleson as 'sparse, rugged and sensual' Linda Catlin Smith's 2012 Rose with Thorns
For many years Michael Finnissy and Darragh Morgan have been enthusiasts of the music of blind 17th Century Irish harper/composer Turlough Carolan. Finnissy's new work Carolan and his friends for pre-recorded piano with violin and harpsichord explores the music of Carolan channelled through a filteration process only the imagination of Finnissy could bring to this musical landscape.
In Singing, Bastard Assignments composer member Edward Henderson explores through field recordings a choir rehearsal outside in an open-air museum in Tbilisi, Georgia. This recording acts as the score in which the performer should try to replicate the recording with all its strange tunings, intonation and metre as much as possible.
Morgan premiered the violin version of Robin Haigh's evocative microtonal sonic world Nasubi in 2021.
Irish violinist Darragh Morgan has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at The Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh Festival, Maerzmusik Berlin, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, BBC Proms, Osterfestival Tirol, Bang on a Can Marathon New York, National Sawdust, Philips Collection Washington DC, Beijing Modern Music Festivala and Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre. He has performed concertos with National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Ulster Orchestra, Johannesburg Philharmonic, Istanbul Symphony and European Union Chamber Orchestra.
Darragh has been invited as Concertmaster with London Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Les Siecles, The Philharmonia and Aurora Orchestra. He has recorded 50+ albums many of which have received Diaspon D'or and Gramophone Awards. Darragh has collaborated with as diverse composers as Scanner and Mira Calix, to Gerald Barry, Donnacha Dennehy and Michael Finnissy. He is violinist in the renowned Fidelio Trio and a former member of The Smith Quartet. Darragh plays an 1848 violin by Giuseppe Rocca.
As soloist and chamber musician, Irish pianist Mary Dullea leads a diverse performance career internationally. Her frequent broadcasts include BBC Radio 3, Radio 4, RTHK, RTÉ Lyric FM, WQXR, Radio New Zealand and Sky Arts, Irish, French, Austrian and Italian television. Concerto appearances include RTÉ Concert Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and KZN Philharmonic Orchestra. Of her multiple CD releases, recent collaborations include premiere recordings of Philip Glass for Orange Mountain Music and, on Divine Art Métier, solo piano music from Iran by composers Amir Mahyar Tafreshipour and Hormoz Farhat.
Mary’s expansive repertoire covers the standard piano literature as well as an ever-increasing amount of 20th- and 21st- century compositions, many of which are dedicated to her. Her piano trio, Fidelio Trio, are passionate advocates for piano trio repertoire around the world. They were shortlisted for the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards Ensemble Prize and have been Gramophone Magazine Editor’s Choice for their recordings. The trio have appeared at prestigious venues around the globe including Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre, Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room Southbank Centre, Casa da Musica Porto, Morrison Artist Series San Francisco, Andy Warhol Museum Pittsburgh, National Centre for Performing Arts Mumbai, Beijing Modern Music Festival, National Concert Hall Dublin, Kilkenny Arts Festival, Brighton Festival, Cheltenham Festival and Gümüşlük International Classical Music Festival. They have collaborated with actor Adrian Dunbar, writer Alexander McCall-Smith and poet Sinead Morrissey. Constantly commissioning new works, composers that the Trio have worked closely with include Johannes Maria Staud, Donnacha Dennehy, Joe Cutler, Judith Weir, Piers Hellawell, Ann Cleare and Charles Wuorinen, to name but a few.
Mary was the curator of Soundings (an annual UK/Austrian collaborative music festival) at the Austrian Cultural Forum London from 2008 to 2016. She has served on the jury of ‘Schubert und die Musik der Moderne’ International Chamber Music Competition in Graz, Austria. In 2014 she founded 'Chamber Music on Valentia' an annual chamber music festival in Co. Kerry, Ireland, with the aim of bringing chamber music performances of international standing, innovative programming and outreach and engagement programmes to this unique place.
Mary was on the piano faculty of Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama for 9 years. She previously held the position of Director of Performance at University of Sheffield and since 2015 she has held this position at Royal Holloway, University of London where she is also Reader in Music.
